


What He Has Not

by ac_MaryAgnes



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Strong Language, Toxic Relationship, and rick is all of us, emotions that are violent, in which shane and lori are monsters in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:46:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23814835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ac_MaryAgnes/pseuds/ac_MaryAgnes
Summary: They had an ugly, monstrous love.
Relationships: Lori Grimes/Shane Walsh
Kudos: 4





	What He Has Not

**Author's Note:**

> “Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolised by him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him what he has not?” - Emily Bronte (Heathcliff : 'Wuthering Heights')
> 
> URGH. Can I just not? I thought I was over them, but then suddenly I wasn't.

Shane paced back in forth in front of her, wild and dangerous in the shaded sun. Lori was a little worried about someone finding them or listening in, but they were on the far side of the farmhouse and everyone was taking care of chores. No one was around to hear this latest argument.

“Now, Ri-Rick’s a good man. A solid man. But he ain’t the man for you, Lori, not any more. You think he could do for you the things I’ve done? You think he could feel for you in eighty years what I feel for you in a day? He could make _you_ feel the things I do? What’s he got that I don’t, huh? W-we’re both leaders; we’re both strong; we both got a moral compass-“

“His points true.”

Shane's hat was slapped against his thigh, clenched tight in his fist. “And mine points to _you_! _Always_ to you, Lori! His points to bullshit like saving junkies and wild goose chases for dead girls and shit that endangers the whole fucking group. I only ever think of your safety and Carl’s! You gotta tell him, Lori,” Shane roared. “You gotta tell him you’re mine, that you belong _with me_!”

“I don’t gotta tell Rick any damn thing, Shane Walsh, and I _sure_ as hell don’t belong to you!”

“Yes you do,” he insisted, advancing on her like a threat. “You belong with the person who saved you, what – four times? Right? You belong with the person who knows you-“

“You don’t know shit; not about me, not about-”

Shane scoffed, rubbing his hands over his shorn hair in disbelief. “What? You think I don’t know what you need? You needed someone to get you away from Atlanta; I got you out. You needed someone to help raise Carl; I helped you. You needed someone to save Carl; I risked life and limb for that boy and I’d do it again in a heartbeat! You needed someone to _kill_ for you; _I_ did that. You need someone to blame; you blame _me_! I bring the pain for you, Lori – you need it and I do it. I fight for you every goddamn day, and I give you everything you wish you didn’t need. You think you want some prince, some white knight to ride in and save you? You had that with Rick and you hated it – you fucking _hated_ it Lori!”

She pushed him back, rage simmering in her hazel eyes as her hands and wrists struggled with the blocky wall of his chest. “I don’t need a monster, Shane!”

“The fuck you don’t!” He caught her wrists and pressed them into the side of the house behind her, his body crowing in on hers. “I became a monster because you needed one in your corner! You needed someone to scare all the other monsters away, to burn the whole goddamn world for you to feel safe in it. Well guess what, Lori? Guess who will do that for you and not even bat an eye!?”

His body was hot and hard against hers, his breath panting into her face. His brown eyes were wild and Lori hated that it turned her on. She shifted her hips, widening her stance just enough for him to settle more firmly against her. Shane took a deep breath and seemed to centre himself with her movement. His nose brushed down her cheek before he pressed a kiss to her neck. This close to her, he could watch the goosebumps rise across her skin. God, he loved this woman.

Lori took a deep breath because despite the violence and the rage, she did need him. She needed him because of that rage, that passion. She needed the fights and the sex and the knowledge that he’d be there, giving everything back to her just as good as he took. He’d never leave her; she knew that as well as she knew the way her thighs shook after he’d fucked her stupid on the forest floor. Lori counted herself as a monster in her own right because when it came right down to it, she needed the rabid dog Shane had turned into so, _so_ bad.

When she spoke next, her voice was hushed. He might roar her secret pain out for everyone to hear it, but she’d slip poison into his ear, sharpened daggers meant just for him.

“I might need you, Shane,” she whispered, her nails digging into the back of his neck as she kept his head close to hers, “but you need me, too. You’re like a dog that’s been hit too many times, but you’ll still beg to follow me – straight to hell, if that’s where I’m going. I could turn you inside out and you’ll still come crawling back for more. Because no one sees you, not like I do. I know exactly who you are and what you’ll do. I know the person you left behind when the world fell apart, and I know you’ll _never_ be that good man again. You need me to hurt you, Shane; it’s the only way you know you’re still alive.”

“I need you to stay,” he added softly, like it was a secret. Like it was something only for her. Like all the pain she’d ever heaped onto him was sweet nothings, the most precious he’d ever heard. He pushed his whole body against her now, trapping her against the siding. His hips ground into hers, his belt buckle digging in just below her stomach. “Stay with me. It’ll be the easiest fucking thing, lady, I swear. You’re it for me, I’ll do _anything_ for you, you know that. And-and god help what’s left of the world if you’re not with me. You don’t wanna see what happens if you aren’t.”

From the kitchen, Rick sat next to the open window. He’d heard every word, felt each one as if they’d been imprinted on his skin. When he heard a belt buckle clink, he got up and left. He didn’t need to hear any more.

* * *

It was late in the evening when Rick found her. She was sitting on the bed of the truck, looking at the stars and wondering when her life had become so goddamn complicated. Rick hopped up next to her and wondered the exact same thing.

“I noticed your stuff was gone. You planning on leaving and not telling anybody?”

Lori swallowed. Best to do it fast, like a Band-Aid. “No, I’m not planning on going anywhere. I just… I can’t be with you any more, Rick.”

Rick turned to look at her profile. How could anyone so lovely break his heart into such small pieces? “I, uh… I heard Dale talk about he thought you were with Shane. Back before Glenn found me.”

“I… Rick, I love you – you’re my son’s father. I married you and I love you, but…. The world ended, and that changes a person, and now…” Lori took a deep, shuttering breath. And she decided to tell the truth. “This thing with Shane, it started out of grief. We needed something, comfort – I don’t know. But then we… we needed something else. During the day, we… we made each other strong. And at night….. And it was nice, you know, having someone to lean on when things were… really a nightmare. We started to be more like a partnership; we’d agree on more things than we didn’t. I mean, we still disagreed about stuff – we wouldn’t be ourselves if we agreed all the time. But we lead the group to safety, kept everybody together.”

Lori swallowed and brought her knees up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them and told herself she was cold because the night air was cool. “And then Glenn found you. And you came back from the dead. It was… well, you know. Part of the nightmare turned out to not be real. We were sure we’d never see you again, that you had died in that hospital. But here you are.”

Rick kicked the his foot out and watched it swing. He couldn’t look at her. “Here I am. And you’re still leaving me.”

“Oh Rick,” Lori shook her head, burying her face in her knees for a moment. “I…. Maybe I’m not explaining this right, but…. I’m not the woman you married any more, honey. That person, that woman disappeared when they bombed Atlanta. The person I’ve become, who I am now… I need Shane. I _need_ him, Rick. We understand each other – the good, the bad, and everything in between.”

“Especially the bad,” he mumbled, but Lori heard him anyway.

“Yeah, I guess. That’s my fault if it’s anybody’s. I tried to deny him, deny this thing he and I have. But… well…”

“Yeah, I got an ear full of that argument this afternoon.”

Lori sighed and curled in tighter around herself. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this hurts you, Rick. You… you’re a good man. A wonderful father. And I really loved being your wife. I just… I just can’t be any more.”

Rick, eyes still trained on the ground, nodded. Thoughts tumbled over and over in his mind, and in his chest his heart rolled. He felt cold all over, and part of him wondered if he was about to die all over again. “The world’s changed, you’ve changed, and Shane… he’s not the man he was, Lori. He’s not… I love him, he’ll always be like a brother to me, but he’s not a good man anymore.”

Lori’s lips folded in. God, this was horrible. Fighting with Shane didn’t even break her heart like this. “That’s the thing, Rick: I don’t need him to be a good man. I just need _him_.”

He shook his head and hopped off the truck. He started to make his way back to the house, but he paused and looked back at her. “You’re not with him because he’s threatened you, are you? Because if that’s the case, Lori, you know I’ll protect you.”

Shocked, Lori blinked at him, but she shook her head. “I’m not… Rick, whatever Shane and I do to each other, we deserve it.”

Rick frowned. “That… that’s not reassuring, Lori.”

She shrugged. She couldn’t think of an honest answer that would be reassuring to anyone. “You don’t have to worry about me, Rick. Shane and I’ll figure it out.”

* * *

Their love was ugly. A snarling, deformed monster, a great and hulking beast lumbering in the shadows, shying away from the light. It was formed from napalm and gunpowder, from sweat and fear, and he would never let her go. From that first moment until his dying breath, even though he had nothing left in this world, by god he’d have her.

Where he was darkness and battle-torn rags, she was a hard and shining blade. She cut him up, whittled him down to a bloody stump, and he’d keep coming back and back again. He’d hem her in, try to tame that wildness in her eyes, keep her locked away and safe from everyone and everything but him. And every time she’d open her mouth, she killed him. She’d fight and rile against the beast inside of himself, and sometimes she’d win. But he’d rally and bat her back, cage her like a beautiful bird until she fought again. It was a constant back and forth, not any kind of giving and taking, but selfishly fighting for more ground.

They were evenly matched. Hard in all the same places, both carrying monsters in the quietness of their hearts. It was something her husband, his best friend, couldn’t understand – that they were corresponding pieces in every sense. Two matches striking against one another to ignite. And that flame burned bright and terrible, blocking out all else and burning each other to ash.

The man on the sidelines and his precious, golden-souled son watched in dismay as they destroyed each other time and time again. They’d try to intervene, to remind the pair that the group had to stick together to find peace. What they didn’t understand was that for them, there would be no peace. Their peace had died a raw, gasping breath, had run and hid and transformed itself into… this. This was their love, and it would drag them both to hell.

**Author's Note:**

> On a serious note, if you and your significant other(s) have to emotionally beat on each other like this, you should probably start looking into either leaving those persons or getting into couples therapy. The dynamic I've written between Lori and Shane (and the dynamic of theirs on the show) is toxic and not healthy in the slightest. It never was healthy, even before Glenn found Rick. Please do not see this sort of relationship as something strive for.


End file.
